Socrates without Socrates

By now, most of you have probably seen the hilarious GARFIELD WITHOUT GARFIELD site, in which that annoying cat is happily airbrushed from the strips that bear his name. It lends a certain strange interest to the comics that I have never found there otherwise. (Remember the David Letterman parody in which Paul Shaffer, dressed as Garfield, said: “Boy, I sure do like food.”)

It’s fun to do the same thing with Platonic dialogues sometimes– airbrushing the words of Socrates and obtaining only the compliant responses of his interlocutors. Here’s one example (this is actually Young Socrates talking with the Stranger in the Statesman, but it’s the same thing as the real Socrates and almost anyone else).

Yes.

None.

It makes no difference.

Manifestly.

Yes.

Certainly.

Good.

Tell me where it is.

Yes.

Of course.

No.

Yes.

True.

He might indeed.

That is so.

This is clearly the difference between them.

Yes– I would agree to it at any rate.

Indeed it is.

Yes.

Of course he is in the second group.

How so?

Quite so.

Very true.

Exactly.

We must look for one.

Where is the division?

Of course.

How?

Yes.

How?

Yes, it does.

Everyone knows about the famous ELIZA from an earlier era of computing. It might be fun to have a comparable program called MENO, in which you could put in a paragraph of philosophical ideas and it would give you the sorts of responses that Socrates generally receives.